


Object and a Dream

by theroguesgambit



Series: Object and a Dream [2]
Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: F/M, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Shared fantasies, dubcon, mentions of Derek/Jennifer, mentions of Derek/Kate
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-07-19
Updated: 2016-07-19
Packaged: 2018-07-25 12:04:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,142
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7532080
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theroguesgambit/pseuds/theroguesgambit
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Short stories based in the Fantasy universe.</p><p>Chapter One: Derek's history and the start of Sterek, with a Fantasy twist.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Object and a Dream

There were so many reasons Derek should have sensed Kate’s betrayal coming. Subtle things, sometimes, and some not so subtle.

Kate had never Fantasized about him.

In person Kate had been all softness: “sweet boy” and smiles, and lingering touches. She’d won him over with whispers about how much she wanted him, how she couldn’t keep away, but in her imagination he had remained remarkably untouched. He’d asked about it one point, breathless and flushed after a particularly hungry flash of Fantasy that he hadn’t been able to cut off soon enough, that he’d _seen_ wash over her as she’d idled in the motel bed right in front of him.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t… I mean, don’t you ever think about me?”

She’d raised an eyebrow and for just a second Derek had _felt_ the distance of the years between them, the ironclad control Kate must have had over her impulses, the ability to stop herself from inflicting Fantasies while Derek knew he still sent them rushing out in short sparks and shivers, the way all his fellow schoolmates did.

But then she had distracted him with a gleaming grin and a subtle, captivating shift of her hips, and asked why anyone would bother wasting time Fantasizing instead of just taking what they wanted?

He’d been so _impressed_ with her then. With her forthrightness, her passion.

It had taken most of his family dying to understand how wrong he’d read her. It had taken _months_  after that for him to recognize that no one should be that emotionally disconnected from her lover, and that for all that societal mores prevented most people from drifting into extended Fantasies, occasional slips and sparks of want should still bleed through as part of any relationship. That’s what the Fantasies were _for_ , after all. To help lovers understand each other better, to know when something was going right… or wrong.

But Derek had been barely sixteen, as inexperienced with deception as he was with relationships, and health class had been remarkably uninformative on the topic of how to make use of Fantasies to detect if someone was looking to murder you and your loved ones.

The school system tended to skirt a lot of the subjects Derek thought would be most useful.

Almost a year after the fire, he had wandered into a public library, sat down in front of a monitor, and found himself scrolling through Google search results about Fantasies’ place in abusive relationships. Seventeen and a dead girlfriend _and_ a dead family to show for his two romantic relationships, and Derek still hadn’t been nearly prepared for what he’d found. Desperate voices filling message boards, asking for help dealing with the sharp stabs of pain that sometimes flickered over them without warning – “i’m ok with things getting a little rough :P but sometimes i’ll wake up feeling more than a love slap….what should i do?” And some questions came from people who weren’t in relationships at all, who weren’t sure where the flashes were coming from or what to do about them. There were people out there who legitimately got off on the idea of violence, of scaring or hurting others… and those tended not to be the kind of people with a lot of self-restraint over their Fantasies.

And there were other places too, whole websites dedicated to doling out advice about violent Fantasies, or calling out demands for reforms punishing Dream Based Abuse... a problem which was going more or less completely ignored by society at large. Aside from the pills offered by every major drug company that claimed to cut off your connection to Fantasies altogether, there just wasn't a lot being done.

Derek had clicked out of the search window and left the library, a sick twist roiling in his gut. Thinking that he was probably lucky Kate had been apathetic enough in her use of him not to spare him a second thought at all.

.-

Still, he’d learned his lesson from Kate. He really had. And he’d sensed sparks from Jennifer… _Julia_ … almost right away. Little things: flashes of mouth-tingling kisses, and trailing touches that had started around the same time he’d met her. And she’d seemed interested, so there was no reason _not_ to connect the two events and…

…And then there had been that day after he was wounded in the fight with the Alphas. After his betas, Scott, and Stiles had thought he’d died. He’d come back to consciousness with dizzying slowness and dragged himself to the school for help… and found Jennifer instead.

As he’d floated in and out of consciousness throughout the drive to his loft he had felt it – long, phantom fingers soothing down his sides, trailing across his scalp. Shaking lips kissing his temple. Breaths from soundless comforts ghosting against his ear. The Dreamer had been so _worried_ about him; he’d felt the longing in their touch, their desperation to be with him, to take his pain and make it all better. He’d known that whoever the Dreamer was... they cared about him. They would look after him, keep him safe.

And Jennifer was the only person in the world who knew he was alive and wounded.

Even now, in the aftermath, he still doesn’t know how she had tricked the very magic of the Fantasy – something that was supposed to reveal the deepest, most earnest desires of the Dreamer – when he’d clearly been nothing more than a tool to her. A means to an end, just as much as he had been to Kate.

 _Darach magic,_ he decides, and tries to forget the safety he’d felt from those soothing hands.

.-

...And that fall afternoon on the way to a track meet he couldn't avoid, Stiles had sat slumped against his seat on the school bus, staring into the distance. Too shocked, too horrified, too _disbelieving_ to cry. Imagining his hands soothing their way across Derek’s still-warm skin, imagining a world where the impossible hadn’t happened, where he’d had a chance to say goodbye. To be there. To somehow _save_ him.

It hadn’t been long since his feelings had started, since he’d started to recognize Derek as something more than a potential threat, (than stupidly attractive), to see him as a friend and maybe something more. Something he’d _wanted._ Since he’d started finding himself slipping into thoughts about kissing him lazily, trailing hands across his face, his skin.

He’d started to really _care_ , damn it, and now…

Scott had gazed out the window, as Stiles gazed at nothing. On the way to a track meet, just keeping up appearances, as though the whole fabric of their reality hadn’t shattered overnight.

“I can’t believe Derek’s dead,” Scott murmured.

And Stiles had just stared into the distance, soothed a phantom Derek with phantom fingers, and pretended the world was a kinder place.


End file.
